See, we'd finished DAI in 2014 and I was beginning to feel the burn out coming on. DAI had been a grueling project, and I really felt like there was only so long I could keep writing stories about demons and elves and mages before it started to become rote for me and thus a detriment to the project. - ThreadSky

davidgaider.bsky.social • 71 days ago

See, we'd finished DAI in 2014 and I was beginning to feel the burn out coming on. DAI had been a grueling project, and I really felt like there was only so long I could keep writing stories about demons and elves and mages before it started to become rote for me and thus a detriment to the project.

Comments

wardencommander.bsky.social•71 days ago

Some of my favorite conversations had nothing to do with those things. Just wanted to put that out there. Like culture clash convos with Sten or family trauma with Nathaniel.

davidgaider.bsky.social•71 days ago

Plus, for the first time I had in Trick Weekes someone with the experience and willingness they could replace me. So I told Mike I thought it was time I moved onto something else... and he sadly let me go.

So, for a time, the question became which of the other two BioWare teams I'd move onto.

imatotach.bsky.social•71 days ago

May I ask for timeframe? Did you work on Joplin at all, or did you move before it even entered planning stage?

davidgaider.bsky.social•71 days ago

Joplin wasn’t really being worked on while I was still there. The DA team was finishing the last of the DAI DLCs.

theslowerarrow.bsky.social•63 days ago

The question is if they did created joplin without you mr.gaider, then why in the earth they decided to throw it all away and make DAV?

I know ea pushes the team to make DA a live service game

But Project joplin easily is one of the best Fantasy concepts ever made!

I don’t understand it

theslowerarrow.bsky.social•63 days ago

I also heard there was a black box or sth like that in the studio, that contained answers to the biggest secrets of dragon age, i thought you probably wrote most of that if not all of it

Wasn’t it the source of adaptation for project joplin?

davidgaider.bsky.social•71 days ago

Both needed a Lead Writer. Mass Effect Andromeda was just gearing up, and while I liked everyone out in Montreal I didn't really want to move. So I joined the new project that the former Mass Effect team in Edmonton was cooking up - the one that became Anthem but, at the time, was code-named Dylan.

davidgaider.bsky.social•71 days ago

That was a mistake.

You see, the thing you need to know about BioWare is that for a long time it was basically two teams under one roof: the Dragon Age team and the Mass Effect team. Run differently, very different cultures, may as well have been two separate studios.

And they didn't get along.

wardencommander.bsky.social•71 days ago

Every time I hear about this or see it, it always sounds like the ME team were just a-holes. No great way but to say it bluntly. Nothing to be done.

davidgaider.bsky.social•70 days ago

I wouldn’t say that. Most of them were lovely. We were always competing for very finite resources, however.

wardencommander.bsky.social•70 days ago

Makes sense. I remember seeing dragon age community manager commenting on mass effects page to give congratulations on launching. ME community manager replied with an awkward rude reply. Anecdotal though, clearly, glad to hear it's not what I had assumed.

datasuna.bsky.social•70 days ago

I've mostly heard stories from the Austin team but considering the friction between them and Edmonton team on anthem it makes a lot of sense.

davidgaider.bsky.social•71 days ago

The company was aware of the friction and attempts to fix it had been ongoing for years, mainly by shuffling staff between the teams more often. Yet this didn't really solve things, and I had no idea until I got to the Dylan team.

The team didn't want me there. At all.

davidgaider.bsky.social•71 days ago

Worse, until this point Dylan had been concepted as kind of a "beer & cigarettes" hard sci-fi setting (a la Aliens), and I'd been given instructions to turn it into something more science fantasy (a la Star Wars). Yet I don't think anyone told the team this. So they thought this change was MY doing.

davidgaider.bsky.social•71 days ago

I kept getting feedback about how it was "too Dragon Age" and how everything I wrote or planned was "too Dragon Age"... the implication being that *anything* like Dragon Age was bad. And yet this was a team where I was required to accept and act on all feedback, so I ended up iterating CONSTANTLY.

bloodymorning.bsky.social•71 days ago

I'm so sad for the loss of Trick at BioWare. I have old friends who used to tabletop with Trick as their DM, so I've been following Trick since the Jade Empire days. It's disappointing to see BioWare get rid of such homegrown talent.

I hope they land somewhere better.

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